Hector and Elizabeth - Donna Zajonc
Donna Zajonc writes: “During the winter of 2011, I lived in Tequisquiapan, north of Mexico City. There I renewed my friendship with Hector and met Elizabeth.”
From the taxi window, I saw a slightly stooped man walking on the dusty shoulder of the cobblestone road. A straw sombrero on his head bobbed with each step. He was wearing a rough wool vest bordered in black. He was carrying the weight of his world on his rounded shoulders. It was Hector.
Following him was a woman as unsure of her steps as her mind was of its function. The sun bleached the already-faded colors of her blouse and skirt, nearly erasing her from the scene. It was Elizabeth.
I asked the taxi to stop. They were on their way to visit Hector’s friend Julio, who lived a few doors from me. They admitted to being tired and eagerly accepted the ride.
Julio had been a friend of Hector’s since university days. He became a successful architect while Hector became a professor of literature, a poet, and a dreamer. Julio was one of the reasons Hector relocated from Oaxaca to Tequisquiapan with its quiet, cobble-stoned, bougainvillea-adorned streets.
The other reason was that Hector could no longer live in the house he owned near Oaxaca because his neighbor ran an under-the-counter, over-the-wall auto paint shop spewing toxic fumes which enveloped Hector’s patio, seeped through the windows into his house, congested his lungs and reddened his eyes. So he gathered his dogs, Noche and Blanca, one under each arm, and boarded the bus to Tequis where he would benefit from clean air and Julio’s warm friendship. In turn, Hector encouraged me to profit from the quiet life and clean air of Tequis. A change sounded exciting. After all, I had been wintering in Oaxaca for 15 years.
It was very shortly after Hector settled into his new surroundings that he received word of Elizabeth’s precipitous arrival. Although Hector and Elizabeth’s sister had agreed that a visit was a good idea, he belatedly realized that he was speeding headlong into becoming the keeper and caregiver of a needy person for the full month of February having only a small inkling of what she might expect of him.
The friendship between Hector, Elizabeth, and her husband, David, began in Oaxaca, where Hector taught them Spanish. They met with him twice a week, two months a year, for more than ten years. Elizabeth and David had settled into an Oaxaca life of lessons and wintertime friends. To them, Hector was both “maestro” and “amigo.”
Now it has been two years since Elizabeth and David enjoyed those days in Oaxaca. David died shortly after their last visit and part of Elizabeth died with him.
A year ago Elizabeth attempted to renew her relationship with Oaxaca where she received the best support Hector could muster. However, she was unable to cope without David and without a good part of her cognitive capacity, and she returned to her California home within three days.
Now, two years later, Elizabeth arrived in Tequis and within days, she and Hector had developed a routine. They would breakfast together and walk to the Vienna Café in the center of the village where they bought cream cakes from a wiry Austrian who made and sold the cakes but never ate them, nor did he lick the frosting from his fingers. When I told Elizabeth the name of the café, she said, “Oh good, I can remember that. I was in Vienna once.” At the Vienna Café, Hector would edit his poems while Elizabeth enjoyed the plaza.
Hector kneaded and nudged his poems while Elizabeth circled the square until she remembered Hector. She would hurry to find him and her sense of security. Hector would invite her to have coffee with him. Then they walked around the plaza together, had lunch and later returned to the café where Hector would make further adjustments to his poems while Elizabeth wrestled letters into crossword squares. At some point, she would get edgy and they would walk the plaza one more time, eventually going home for dinner.
Elizabeth’s mind accepts new information with great resistance and retrieves old information with even greater resistance. Most often, she can’t remember my name or Hector’s. That she couldn’t remember my name was surprising to me, although it shouldn’t have been, as I wasn’t a part of her Oaxaca life. For her, I was a new Tequis friend. However, the first time she couldn’t remember Hector's name, I was the one confused. She was stumped and frustrated when she tried to remember it. She blurted out, “You know the man I’m staying with. What’s his name?” I was shocked. I didn’t believe that Hector was the name she couldn’t remember.
She was good natured about it and laughingly admitted to forgetting nearly everything. When I told her a friend of mine was coming to visit and that his name was Bob, she said, “Oh good. I can remember that. That’s the name of my brother-in-law.” She was joyous whenever a name association would help her recall a name or place.
Regularly, Elizabeth and I found things to do together. One day we sorted her money. It seems she and Hector had gone to the bank the previous week and, shortly after, she told Hector that she lost her money. He told her that we have to be more careful, but accidents happen. A few days later, Elizabeth exclaimed, “Oh, look Hector! I found some money I didn’t know I had.” She agreed that sorting her money was a good plan.
We first sorted the peso notes into denominations of 5s and 10s. Then we stopped to study the picture of Benito Juarez on the 20-peso note. She remembered hearing good things about him. We both were interested in the 100-peso note issued to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. One side featured the railroads (which sadly no longer exist) while the other side featured the valiant Mestizos who brought the revolution to a successful conclusion. We both thought Jose Morales, pictured on the 50-peso note, was very sexy. We found Sor Juana, on the 200-peso note. She was one of the most notable women in Mexican history, ranking in familiarity with La Malinche, the legendary concubine of Hernan Cortes. However, Sor Juana was an ardent nun, a prolific poet and a revered revolutionary.
After sorting, counting and chatting, Elizabeth put her little money, that would be Juarez and Morales as well as the 5- and 10-peso notes, in a little green wallet. She put her big money that would be the Mestizos and Sor Juana, in her big green pouch. Both of which she fit into an even larger green and beige striped carrying bag, which she bought the day she thought she lost her money. Her reasoning was that if she had something big enough to hold all her money, she wouldn’t lose it.
On other occasions, Elizabeth and I would take the local bus for trips we jokingly called our trips to nowhere. We took the Number 3 bus, which goes very close to the area where I live. We took the Number 8 bus, which serves the neighboring village of La Tortuga. One day we took the Number 9 bus to the village of San Nicolas. Back in Tequis, we bought a map to see if we could find the villages we had visited and then we’d know we hadn’t really been taking a bus to nowhere, but that we had actually gone somewhere!
On days I had Spanish lessons at the Vienna Café with Hector, Elizabeth would go for an amble around the square wearing her sun-faded blouse and skirt. Eventually she would return to confirm Hector’s whereabouts.
When my lesson was over, Elizabeth and I would decide on an adventure. One time she bought a small notebook in which she wrote down the places we had visited on our bus trips. She apologized for her handwriting and with a chuckle said, “No one else can read it, but I can.”
At other times, we shopped in the local market for food and flowers. When we finished buying everything from calla lilies in honor of Frieda to sweet smelling corn tortillas, we slid the bags and bundles into the back seat of the first suspensionless taxi in the queue and bumped over the cobblestone streets to my house. Once there, Elizabeth washed the strawberries and cilantro and together we’d pick pebbles from the dried beans. We always bought too much of everything, notably cheese. In Mexico, the cheese is good! And Elizabeth had a favorite. She couldn’t remember that it was the cheese from Chihuahua that she favored, even when I yapped like a lap dog. She didn’t recognize it by sight either, but she did remember the taste. When the lady selling the cheese proffered a bite-sized wedge on a torn piece of banana leaf and Elizabeth tasted it, she smacked her lips. We always bought some, and later we ate it with strawberries while we sat on the shaded patio making words with lettered Bananagram squares. The game, a stepchild of Scrabble, gave us both pleasure and cognitive exercise.
When it was time to draw some letters, I tried to teach Elizabeth to say, “Take five.” I’d say, “What do you say?” She would say, “Get some more,” with a questioning glance, and I would say, “Take five,” and she would smile and repeat, “Take five.” When it was the next time to augment her pool of letters, I would ask, “What do you say?” Her face would cloud over a bit and I would say, “Take five.” She would smile and say, “Oh yes. I forgot.” Even my wiggling five fingers did not help her recall. After one of the failed attempts, she sighed, “Oh, if my students could see me now.” Both she and her husband used to be middle-school teachers. A couple more tries and when, once again, I saw her face cloud over, I realized that for her to learn “take five” was not going enhance her enjoyment of the game one iota. I deep-sixed my “take five” initiative.
The days blended together. Elizabeth worked in her young people’s crossword puzzle book, while I used the Internet. Then we’d walk to have coffee in the plaza. I brought out the Bananagram squares. We made words. We’d “get some more.” She’d smile as she took five. Soon Hector walked by. We’d gossip and joke, share fresh orange juice and listen as the magpies began their late afternoon serenade. Their piercing song was a signal to Elizabeth and Hector that the sun would soon fall behind the surrounding hills. So they hastily left while there was still time for a turn on the plaza before walking home.
For me, Elizabeth was a pleasure, a treat to enjoy at my choosing. For Hector, Elizabeth was a pleasure and a responsibility.
After four weeks, Elizabeth would go home and Hector would be pleased with his effort, exhausted by his experience and apprehensive about what next February might bring.
